Monday, 16 December 2013

The season of chaos is in full swing, adding to that which we co-exist with already! Time is short and the list is long and obstacles left right and centre. Nothing like keepin' on keepin' on though but seriously it has felt like Friday all week - I'm that disorientated. And this last two week stretch until I finish this shift work monkey business seems longer than the entire time I've been there. That old cliche so near yet so far, I feel like I'm crawling through treacle to the finish line.

Really I'm not sure what else I expected ... a peaceful winding down, a calm recalibration period leaving me feeling refreshed and ready to enter the next phase of life with my head firmly on my shoulders? I'll put that whimsical imagining away and strive to embrace the madness instead - for this is what I seem to be surrounded by, festive madness!

We are all ready to fall out of the term time rhythm, we need for time to become inconsequential. My romantic theory is that if we do not use the measurement of time on the clock then we find non-time. Days and weeks become timeless and when we are not constantly measuring our days out into minutes and hours they seem to go further, last longer and become fuller. I get a sense of this during the holidays, a rising and setting sun or a hungry belly telling me all I want to know and the winter festival is a chance to strengthen our anchorage in the darkest months as nature puts itself to sleep above ground.

Still, enchanting in it's way, there is the beauty of gnarly tree trunks silhouetted against dramatic sunsets and barren branches in the woods sketching a reminder of where the spring canopy will appear once again next year if only we have enough patience to wait. We were in the woods on Sunday, enjoying again the rustic charm of seeing father Christmas there. I don't need an excuse to get clad in earthy elfin threads but this day I feel a resonance that demands it. I tended the fire outside the cabin and made tea for the other elves and the kids came down at the end with beautifully written letters in hand, both leaving with their belief in magic firmly reaffirmed for another year yet - evident in the private smiles they both wore as we walked away. The simple backdrop of the woods leaving more to my bairns imagination than the gaudy colours of store-dwelling Santa's I do everything to avoid!

Now to get through the next few weeks and retain an air of magic within my own being through the seasonal stress, I am secretly hoping a little spark from that fire made a nest inside my soul somewhere.

Thursday, 28 November 2013

Curiously, I have defensively barricaded myself in limbo this last month whilst going through an intense job selection process. With the potential to sleep every night teasing me from a remote corner yet again and the possibility of easier financial times and a more reliable much needed structure to our weeks, I have felt almost sick waiting to find out. But all good things as they say .... and here I am now, feeling all unlocked and hugely relieved, mama got a normal job! As I have grown to expect on this trip there are new complexities I haven't had to consider for a while like wrap around childcare, transport in the dark winter months and how I get everything else done with even less time in the nest than before! But it's a trade off, you can't keep all the balls in the air all of the time (well I can't) these are just the ones I'm compromising for this next particular phase of my life.

Being a soft git I sobbed with relief for about half an hour after I got the news then felt a subtle shift; stood up a little taller, breathed a little deeper, let my shoulders drop and remembered how it all came about, the universe had this set up every step of the way and for once I have aligned. Just the thought of the good this change will bring has seen me morph back into a more happy present mama.

Naturally I have been through the whole 'am I selling out on all my holistic parenting values?' thang but I decided that on balance the imps have had a lot of my time since they were born, those formative years of theirs have been well covered. In my mind things were always meant to get easier once they were both at school and so there is no point me beating about the bushes and not grabbing this opportunity and giving it the chance to evolve. Simply a new way of balancing the scales out. Did I mention I only have to work 3 out of the 13 weeks of school holidays in a year - making full time hours during term time immeasurably more palatable. And, as a little nod to me from whatever energy is rooting for me here, the office I will be working in is based two minutes from my favourite woodland, you see.

SO my imps, what have they been up to aside from bickering, squabbling and generally driving me insane? Well they have been super cute too, good job really - lots of yoga has been happening ... look at these textbook asanas!

Lots of writing. Gaia is incredible, her mind is so quickly engaging with what she is learning at school. She independentlypractises her writing and numbers at home in every spare minute she isn't asleep. At parents evening her teachers said she just doesn't stop, all day she is whirling from one activity to another. Unsurprisingly she is a tired neurotic mess by the end of the day, but I'm trying to give her little anchors of security in new bed time rituals like choosing her pjamas together and tidying her room whilst she gets into them, lots of cups of herbal tea (they are now both total tea heads like their mama!) and never failing to read a bedtime story.

Space. The final frontier. The origins of the universe. That's what is happening for Zander at the moment and I'm finding it rather contagious! Programmes likes How The Universe Works, Horizon and Through the Wormhole are firm favourites, some nights he'd rather forgo a bedtime story to watch them and I totally get that. When I was about 8 suddenly it was all about space for me too. I buried myself in my dads complex astronomy books despite struggling to decipher the scientific terminologies and endless diagrams of the night sky. I immersed myself in science at school and could be heard declaring quite genuinely that I wanted to dream big and be an Astronaut ... more space cadet than astronaut it turns out. I think it is the first time I have ever understood Zander in an unspoken way - without giving myself brain ache trying to figure him out. And I need these opportunities to see similarities and find understanding with simplicity, fostering connections happens organically then. We are both hoping that Comet Ison makes it round the sun and back past Earth again at the end of December so that we can go comet watching together. See, when something sparks a flame within him like this there are always posters and fact sheets a plenty to follow from his industrious creative side. He drew the most beautiful picture of the spherical solar system including the mysterious Oort cloud on the outer edge, he labelled tragectories for all the planets and has seemingly fallen under the spell of the Gas Giants, drawn to Saturn and Jupiter. And it was just the other week he wrote and illustrated a detailed little book on the subject of the Giant Impact Hypothesis - Thiea, Earth and the Moon. There is nothing more satisfying than seeing my children engaged so intensely in the things that interest them, to me this is their real education, this is the garden where their minds grow exponentially.

Nature is our playground still too - we are all much better behaved outside even when it is colder and Autumn has delivered this year, cast her magic spell well and truly upon us ...

Is that not the Brambley Hedge Store-Stump? We thought so.

little wonders ...

what could be more fun than jumping about in a stream in autumn?

for me? kickin' up those leaves of life of course! Nothing like that sound of dry crunchy leaves thick underfoot - it's a shortcut straight back to childhood.

collecting dam making material ...

finding noisy critters whilst we climb trees together ....

I'm always the first in the tree. I missed out on tree climbing when I was small so I am making up for it now.

Impromptu woodland rendezvous with friends and those curls - be.still.my.heart.

My mushroom obsession. I'm perpetually amazed and enchanted by them, they exude the ethereal. We have all of us heard they are left wherever the faerie folk gather - a footprint, a trace of otherworldly energies and in a spellbinding sort of a way I could altogether loose track of time wondering at their structural beauty and delicacy. The imps want to get an identification book and I would like to find someone with mushroom wisdom who can show me which ones we can forge and eat. They have this incredible iridescence even in these pictures look ....

The wheel is evidently in motion within and without. It turns perpetually, shedding old things and manifesting the new. Our challenge is to synchronise with this forward motion and the blessing of low, shadow stretching autumn sun is lighting the way.

Wednesday, 20 November 2013

Oh Autumnyou bring forth in me, always, wellsprings of poetic thee's and thou's as if I were not hopelessly romantic enough already!That signature rusty palette you attend to all the Earth with?Slays me as it sets the very trees ablaze!And by the wind- shards of fire shatter from lofty branches and come to rest as a gaudy carpet reflecting above below.Oh AutumnSomehow, you hang sepia in the air tinting everything precisely, how so?You stretch shadows and wash the horizon with a delicate water-colour rainbow,Whilst those slow herds lurch with a mysterious new grace, through your low concealing veils.Veils which are thinning now - as is plain to see from the frivolous clues left by the FaeTheir enchantments and mischief suffusing even the most unsuspecting of places.Oh Autumn you close the summer in such a way as it seems it might really go on forever after all.But winter humbles us abruptly into a quieter remembrance.A reverence to the undeniable duality at the very core of life.As you sleep, She dreams hope.

Wednesday, 23 October 2013

I haven't poured our experiences and my thoughts into this space for a while now. I miss that, but distracted, I have struggled to find the frame of mind, instead preferring to loquaciously thrash out my various internal dilemmas in multiple journals and notebooks that are now strewn carelessly around the house. Over the last five years I have come to expect Autumn to be a journey of reflection - looking inward, evaluating the year that has been, exorcising demons & conceiving new seedling ideas for that which lies ahead. But this year it is a veritable maelstrom.

In March when I cut my dreadlocks of twelve years off a friend said I'd probably find this was a funny old year and she was right. I knew I had set something in motion and in the months that followed I generated for myself more grounding and connection than I ever have except during both my pregnancies. Silly me, I naively thought the year would continue with Zen like equanimity but a lot has been in flux recently and it feels like a massive test. Job opportunities have been and gone bringing with them highs of hope and lows of frustration. Gaia has started school and with that I have felt the need to dwell in non-time, to just sit as my world changes around me, listening to the waves of change crash and recede from my shore. I assumed it would be spacious and deeply nourishing and wrote luxurious lists of things I would like to do, need to do, should do - yoga and running, crafting, writing, housework and preparing hot dinners ready for after school but in reality I am feeling like I have barely had time to breathe and half term now loiters only a few days away. As if the universe is watching all of this, (which of course it is!) now that there is non-time to dwell in, it has abruptly forced deep soul searching upon me; longings and truths that all need exploring, acknowledging and honouring at long last. The potential these considerations have to shake our lives up has had me running for the shelter of denial for so many years, facing them hurts, it is raw and real and quite frankly I feel more like cowardly lion than warrior woman.

The reassuring thing is I am preemptively curious as to how I am going to deal with each new challenge, I ask 'what am I going to learn from that or from this person' and for the first time in my life I am utterly conscious and surrendered to the fact that I am the only one who can make my decisions for me. It doesn't matter how many friends I speak to or what advice I seek it is still me who makes the call and it's on my head if it all turns to shit. 'The answers are within ... I promise you' - words from another wise friend.

Now I would just like the cerebral space to simply lavish both children (and myself from time to time) with my undivided attention.

Gaia is desperately tired from her first half term at school which manifests in a massive attitude and lots of inexplicable tears. But simultaneously she is thriving with the stimulation that school brings. Reading and writing interest her where Zander still isn't all that bothered. She brings home 3 or 4 books a day to read and it is quite astonishing to find myself sitting next to my youngest listening to her bring words to life off the page. She takes so much pride in reaching the milestones she watched her brother reach before her. Harvest assembly was adorable and the lunch with parents a key part of her initiation. Each day she tells me how she saw Zander in the playground and gave him a big cuddle and a kiss and this just makes my heart soar. I'm finding joy in simple things like the packed lunches I make for them, making simple evening meals so that we three can all snuggle up on the sofa, watch a movie together and reconnect.

My new battle with Zander, and the school, is homework. Honestly he has zero interest in it what so ever, he is too busy a bee. The playroom turns into a battle ground if I try and insist he does it. I am prepared to come under the scrutiny of school if necessary but I have decided he is too young for enforced homework and that if he doesn't want to do it I will not insist on it. I have encouraged him to take an interest but beyond that I am not willing to bring in another source of stress for us all. He has started to become interested in History after learning about the Crimean War and Florence Nightingale and was bitterly disappointed to realise that the weekend at home with us meant no lunch-times with class mates in which to re-enact scenes from said war. His art at home has been all muskets and soldiers and he wrote me a gorgeous fact sheet on Florence Nightingale off his own back.

He is finally branching out & making new friends at school. I am relieved as he has only really had one main friend the last two years and no desire to change that set up. I think he has been socially shy and lacked confidence in himself. I have spoken with him about how it would be to play with others, mix it up some - we all as mama's want our kids to find it easy to make friends, to have confidence in new groups of people and not to become too attached to any one in particular so he and I are both relishing his new found confidence.

And so the wheel turns. The winds change. As does the season. As do We. Regardless of the challenges, life is rich and roots that can anchor me run deep.

Saturday, 14 September 2013

The imps both lay sleeping, soundlessly snugged up in blankets on the couch. They drifted off cosy in our nest as I prepar dinner from the garden and nature documentaries play on the TV: belly's full of fruit and cake. Each afternoon since school began last week I have dug my heals in and said no to TV and playstation after school. None at all, not a drop - just music and audiobooks and other more meaningful activities. The impact it has had is as I expected, they are less manic, massive relief! But today the boy took a nasty tumble on the unfriendly concrete of the school playground and so I wanted him to rest. If there is one DVD that I can guarantee will grip them in a good way, interest and intrigue them, get their inquisitive minds enquiring it is Life of Mammals. Vivid imagery and the soothing voice of David Attenborough. They really love it. Zander too was watching Horizon the other night - about the plight of bees and he seemed to be recalling extraordinary facts with surprising precision, his mind is hungry for factual information and it wants to rebel and freak out when bombarded with cartoons for cartoons sake. So that is exclusively Daddy's bag. He puts cartoons on when I am at work and so I have no guilt in depriving them of these when I'm on duty! Our influences balance each other out and I can live with that - the imps will thank me when they are older.

Last days. Of summer, of having my baby girl at home during the week .... I am feeling conflicted within, at odds, jagged edges. No wonder. Seasons of my life change as the seasons of the year do too, Autumn is infusing my home and my heart ... I want to wear jumpers and fill the house with smells of baking. It is comfortable, even when it rains, comforting perhaps in a strange way.

The last day of the summer holidays was truly the last day of summer ... made the most of with a paddling pool party ...

And those last weeks were the ones I embraced so much more convincingly than the ones that came before. The knowing that the end was in sight made them more precious than my complacent imaginings that the summer holidays last forever ... as they did in my childhood. Perspective changes. We spent hours playing games and I embraced spontaneity, or rather the art of appearing to be spontaneous!

Breakfast fire in the garden

Breakfast in the woods

I got me this thing about spontaneous breakfasts in particular. I guess its the least likely time of day to get up and do something exciting and unexpected so the impact the children feel is greater. It's been so much fun and going out very first thing we are full of energy and good vibrations and we are home by lunch time, thus the day elongates and feels so timeless and infinite. Yes! I am mastering the art of manipulating time!

Dude! Rainbows in porridge!

Zander brought me a handful of sage and said he'd picked it so I could make a sage bundle ... what perfect thoughtfulness ... he knows me, so very well. Be still my heart.

I made this Tee-pee when they were oh so small, from branches of trees we cut right back in the front garden. Somehow, it seems poetic and fitting that as my last baby goes off to school things shift shape, I dismantled it today. Half coming down anyway it seemed to be calling quietly to me to be re-imagined into something new and exciting for them. A reminder that things are impermanent - like the sinew the American Indians make their dream catchers from - it is only meant to last a while and will wither away with weather as the child grows. I feel this here. The possibilities for this space are exciting.

Autumn starts to infuse our nest and I welcome her as I did when I was a child. For different reasons but all the same she's here again.

... but thank you my darlings for a wonderful summer. Thank you for all that you've taught me, the challenges you've brought me (no really!).

Thursday, 5 September 2013

This challenge has really got me going! This morning I compiled a list of things that could keep us going until Tuesday next week based around our store cupboard and the garden with minimal spend on essentials like milk, loo roll and eggs! Today the garden has provided all but one ingredient for our dinner. We have courgettes potatoes and spring onions still out there and I have mint in the fridge that is dried from ages ago. The one naughty ingredient I bought in is a block of feta which combined with the veg creates a luxuriously flavoursome Greek casserole type thing and it is something we eat relentlessly here in the summer and never ever grow bored of. It tastes unbelievable and is a recipe I have been making for over ten years now. The kids go especially nuts for it when I use our homegrown veg.

For lunch we had a little party just me and the two imps as orchestrated by Gaia who is very aware of the need to celebrate this last day of the summer holidays. I love that they already recognise the importance of marking poignant days, even full moon has become a cause for their attentions now. So I made pizzas, we had scones left over from breakfast and I bought some crisps as a treat and also a pineapple because there's no fruit left in the house. Fruit is essential and I won't scrimp on it.

This is frugal living, yet it feels way more abundant and real than the depressing consumerist habits it is easy to fall into when I'm time poor, distracted or too tired to think. Abundance is a theme I am exploring lately within the context of family life and the kids perception of it. It is a constant battle for me as I am not a high or even moderate earner due to the part time nature of my work since the kids were born and I do not hold much importance on being so, happiness and balance are immeasurably more important than wealth. But I have noticed myself saying all too often things like 'Sorry I don't have any money' 'wait till pay day poppet' 'I can't afford that' lately. And I shouldn't - lest the kids grow up feeling deprived and impoverished even if only conditioned by me and my words to think that. I am coming round to the idea that the trick here is to make everything seem abundant even if money is scarce. And in working on seeming abundant I actually start to feel more abundant myself, then it all flows nicely round in a circle governed by the law of attraction ... what you put out you get back. In this sense creating abundance is actually proving easier, less emotionally and physiologically demanding than stressing and frowning about the bread line each day. I am genuinely surprised at how much money I have saved this week and I'm kicking myself for not being more conscious of my spending more of the time. Turning it into a pro-active project in these posts and on facebook with friends has given me an enthusiastic kick up the ass. It's all in the mind, I see that now.

Wednesday, 4 September 2013

When the youngest is about to fly a little, stretch her wings some and branch out, it is bittersweet.
A moment of deep aching to have those pre-school years all over again.A disbelief at how quickly those years passed,nostalgia for the days she babbled like an incoherent brook and poked me with sticky pudgy fingersalways beaming, always smiling, always radiating the purest of joy.
How did we get here? Sentimental tears risk breaching the tiny well springs in the corners of my eyes at any momentas I watch her now, fascinated.The sun drenches her corn gold curls so that they are illuminated like a halo around herA bow I made hangs across her back, her little arms milk bottle white and she runs to the back door...'I love you mum' she says, then scampers off again for more merry mischief.
When I really stop and let the blessing of my children permeate my deepest soulTime stands still. Love and purpose pulsate the ether. I love watching, just watching them discretely, so that they do not realise I am watching at all. So busy and blissfully uncaring for time they are truly living, I mean REALLY livingBEING, human beings.
I muse that once I would have greeted life the very same way,only indulging each and every moment as it came ... with wonder and imagination, spontaneous and curious.
I am enchanted, mesmerised by her every move as I sit here. She is magic.I am blessed.

Day 2 of the challenge we spent happily lazing in the park - a sort of last chance saloon to hang out with friends before the kids start going back to their separate schools for the autumn term. I managed to create a picnic entirely from garden and store cupboard supplies! We had jacket spuds and hommous, homemade bread rolls, buckwheat, quinoa, courgette, tomato and herb tabbouleh, raw beetroot and tomato salad plus i shortbread for treats.

For dinner we had spaghetti bolognese and the only ingredient I had to buy was spaghetti - the organic wholewheat stuff was on offer so a proper bonus. The sauce was made from homegrown tomatoes, onions and courgettes, garlic, herbs and soya protein mince and we had apple and blackberry pie left over from the night before for afters.

Day 3 has been just as successful. There was left over spag bol and tabbouleh that we devoured at lunchtime and for dinner I made samosas from scratch ... potatoes, peas, herbs and spices, flour and water. I also made chickpea and tomato ketchup curry - a favourite River Cottage store cupboard recipe. We made more Tansy Shortbread for pudding and I even found some glimmer sugar in the back of the cupboard which we decorated them with. I actually feel like we've eaten better this week than normal because I've been creative rather than approaching dinner time with dread and lethargy. Food made with love and inspiration always tastes ten times better I think.

Tuesday, 3 September 2013

So again, well as usual but extremely so, I am broke and the cost of living keeps on keeping on up. I hate feeling like I can barely afford to feed the family. It could either depress the hell out of me or spur me on to rise to the challenge. So I'm challenging myself to a week of store-cupboard dinners again ... if there is the odd ingredient that is a game changer and not in the house I'm prepared to buy it otherwise if it's not in the cupboard or the veg plot its not on the menu.

Yesterday got off to a great start. We went blackberrying. I am besotted with the subtle start of autumn, she turns me into a hopeless romantic, poetic and whimsical ... my thoughts are poetic my food is poetic, I'm just utterly in love this time of year. The kids and I are almost addicted to the high we get from gathering in all the blackberries we can carry if pots and bags become too full then bellies are good for transporting berries too! So we had apple and blackberry pie for pudding ... i bought 1 x cooking apple for this otherwise it is totally FREEGAN!

For main course I assembled an alternative lasagna. Chestnut mushrooms from the fridge and courgettes from the garden very finely chopped which I charred with garlic and homegrown tomato, herb and honey passata arranged ratatouille style between the layers of pasta from the freezer and homemade bechmel sauce. It was probably the best vegetarian lasagna I have ever eaten and I'm not just blowing my own trumpet.

For lunch the kids ate jacket potatoes from the garden with a bit of butter and hommous (which I bought as they won't eat my home made hommous ... whats with that??!!) and I had some raw beetroot salad that was left over from yesterday ... also entirely store cupboard/garden made.

Gaia made shortbread biscuits which we had all the ingredients for and we even had icing sugar too so they are a slightly naughtier treat now!

Tomorrow I have a picnic to prepare for too but I have scanned the cupboards and made a list of all sorts of possibilities for the rest of the week, I can do this! And with the money I am saving I plan to take the kids to the cinema tomorrow for kids am as the tickets are only £1.75 each even for mama. I am working a night shift tonight so it is perfect - they watch the film, I snooze in the dark and a lovely end of school holiday treat.

Monday, 19 August 2013

... they change all the time, by the day ... hell by the hour at the moment. One minute things are lollipops and rainbows the next minute I'm on the verge of screaming banshee mama because for the uptininth time something or someone has happened or done something or not listened to me AGAIN ad infinitum! It feels like groundhog day each and every day. And though I love my kids so very very much and have all these wonderful ideals and ideas about how to raise them often I feel like I am floundering, helpless, hopeless, like a proper shitty ass mama. The trouble is you see, from the outset, long before they were even conceived, I signed myself up to raise free spirits and as authentic to my true nature as this is - when I stop and realise there are now two extra people in the house - maybe smaller than I, but who are now just as stubborn, passionate, creative and free and strong willed as me I think it is no wonder I am emotionally exhausted by it all before 9 o'clock each morning!

I was at work this evening, responding to and caring for adults with hight complex needs - not in control of themselves, much like children I guess but in different ways and for different reasons. Non the less things happen, accidents happen, lots of wailing and moaning, non verbal screaming and bashing things about, ignoring what they are asked and told, basic needs to be met and I deal with it all and do it all with unlimited patience a smile and a kind word. I thought to myself tonight how this is just not fair. Not fair that I find it easier to cope with a house full of grown ups with complex needs just as capable of chaos than I do my own articulate offspring who I grew and birthed and continue nurture. Forget the fact I am being paid to do that job, that at the end of the day I can 'give them back', that it is only a few days a week - when you strip it down it just shouldn't be! I LOVE my children like no one else on the planet so why can't I go through the day with the same aplomb and patience, methodology and compassion as I do at work? Is it noble to think I could or should or is it just a pointless comparison? It is food for thought and inspiration if nothing else.

And then as I was cycling home I thought of all the heartbreaking mornings I begrudgingly dropped my sweet boy off at nursery at the tender age of nearly three because I had a normal day job back then. I remember acutely how he stood alone, face down cast, sucking his fingers, chin wobbling, tears starting to flow, silent, alone, ignored by staff, most likely heart broken himself, possibly scared and sad ... oh it was horrible. Then I think of how angry and frustrated I've been at him today and I berate myself, rebuke myself and kick myself madly. God damn it Rose I shriek within ... remember all this next time you are about to launch into a tirade or send him to his room. Would it make any difference? Do I ever remember any of that in the throws of frustration? Is it possible?

I know I'm not the only one who struggles, I know this isn't an easy gig for anyone so I am at least human but I just expect of myself that I should be able to do it all so much better. Each day is a chance to be a better person than we were the day before and this is really the only thing that keeps me sane. This and their unconditional love.

I just wanted to write these thoughts down for authenticity's sake, for perspective before I slept, forgot about them, woke up thinking I am super mum again and that today WILL be the day that everything changes and is all lollipops and rainbows for real - as I do most mornings for a split second before the chaos starts. Bringing a light heart to a situation never hurt anyone either so here is me doing just that.

Off to meditate

...then to attack the library and the blackberry and elderberry bushes.

Friday, 16 August 2013

... by home I don't mean my Mama's house or any man made structure I've ever lived in before. I mean the home that never ceases to lift the weight of my troubles from my shoulders the instant I arrive, the one that my soul belongs to, the one that sings songs as I shrug off a heavy coat of stress - the songs I noticed today thatmy boy hears on the breeze and the whispers in the leaves too. It's the one place we 3 are all guaranteed to behave ourselves and play nicely together!

Some places demand that I fall in love with my kids all over again however much of a bat-shit-crazy kind of day or week or month we've been having. Free from distraction and drudgery. The Woods ... The Mushroom Tree. It was a Beech tree exquisite in it's precision structure ~ the way it's branches have grown to form a curious curvaceous cap that makes it look like said mushroom and underneath these branches, almost definitely on purpose, an ethereal hide out waiting for just the right size pixie ... how I wished I was 6! A branch, the perfect height for little legs to climb to, the perfect ledge to safely recline on and boasting leafy emerald framed windows from all aspects. I saw my boy start buzzing, high on woodland vibrations. I heard him buzzing, articulating, using words and tones he's not used before in perfect context and I saw pure happiness radiating from his face. 'Oh mummy this is the bestest feeling I've ever had, this is the bestest I have ever felt. I'm telling you this is irresistible, I have all these windows, I feel like a pixie, I have the best view of you from here'

This Beech sister seemed to have spoken to his wild little heart and he wanted to sit, just sit and sit, looking out of his pixie windows, feeling every inch a pixie, absorbing joy like a sponge. Ah it made my heart swoon and though I immortalise it here in words and pictures I shall remember in far more clarity for the whole of my life. He gets it, weather he realises fully or in the same way I do, consciously or not, he gets it. I mean the life force, nature magic, that feeling we perceive exuded by the sacred untouched places of mama earth. He must be listening some. At least he's listening to something because it certainly isn't me!

The fallen Oak and the feel of it's wisely old bark underneath bare feet is my own irresistible. I went prepared, certain that the imps would invent some wild game for a while so I sat in the tree reading Mary Oliver's poetry smugly watching from my vantage point the surprise of passers by to see a mama up a tree too.

Unmistakably, I can feel the turn of the wheel of the year. In mornings and evenings though sunny there is a crispness that can only herald autumns slow return. Blackberries are plentiful now and we have been making bramble jelly for the first time this year. It is so much easier to make than jam! The wheat in the garden is golden and the pears on the trees still ripening. So tempting to the imps but this year we have avoided any pre-ripe stripping of plants and trees, they are that bit older and probably remember my spectacular tantrum last year after they stripped every last tomato off the vines, every last pear off the tree and made silly soup with them before I'd had chance to eat even one. Gaia is truly involved with the things we grow. She likes to just walk up to the veg plot and sit and look for subtle changes - if the tomatoes have slightly more blusher on today than yesterday, she'll notice. If the leeks are a millimetre taller or fatter, she'll notice. They both see the cucumbers hiding on the vine that I from my adult vantage point miss. They notice the shiest most promising clusters of blackberries that remain hidden to adult foragers. There is so much we miss from our fully grown height - I should crouch more when we visit the woods - see how the trees grow when I shrink, as surely as when I grew they shrunk. I should sprawl on my belly more whilst hanging out in the garden, see the minuscule magic I once knew so intimately as a child myself.

They may be a complete pain the ass but how could I not love them with all my heart!

My Blog List

Followers

About Me

I am a nature loving mama blessed with two wee wildlings living in East Anglia, old land of the Iceni, in England.
I am a weaver of words, stitcher of stories and curious of thoughts. I write experientially, when it flows and needed a space to collate these things for myself and for friends. So here we are. Brew up a tea and make sure it’s a big slice of cake you have there before you sit down and read. Enjoy X